Renatio et Gloriam is a newly published (2024) set of Renaissance big battle rules. Although the books boast being the fully revised 2nd edition all previous sets were PDFs and best described as playtest versions. Be warned that some of the on-line fluff describes 3 ways to play with small, medium and standard sized battles. At present only the standard, big table, 1,000 point version seems to exist. There is an extensive list of alternative Pike and Shot rules together with more general Renaissance sets at The Via Regia. Renatio et Gloriam is included; several of the alternatives are in common use, some are completely free. One omission is the unofficial Renaissance expansion for the Ancient rules Art de la Guerre, these are free but do require purchase of the base rules. Renatio et Gloriam is relatively expensive to get into, the army lists are a separate cost to the rules and the initial user base is limited at best.
An obvious buyer’s market are those with old DBR and FOGR armies that have been boxed up for years. Although roughly the same model count it is not immediately obvious if these armies will run optimally without buying any new bits. The Renatio et Gloriam list books are not free and, at present, there are very, very few army lists to be seen in the wild. Not even lists being used in specific games; data from older versions of the rules and lists being of doubtful relevance. There are some details of real games from November 2022 on the ‘Mad Lemmy’ blog. To make any sense of what is required to play you need some idea how the lists work, you cannot simply read down the lines and add up the points (fear not we’ll fix that here). Another market is from users of the ancient rules Mortem et Gloriam. Some of the mechanics are the same and the same bespoke cards and dice are in use. The Mortem et Gloriam lists are free and overlap Renatio et Gloriam in the late 15th century. It would not be a major task to punch the Morten et Gloriam stats into the Renatio et Gloriam army builder, guess any missing special rules and go for it. These would not be competition official but the calculated points would be accurate and this sort of list is always going to rely on a degree of interpretation or fudging to get the right look and feel.
Organisation follows in the style of DBR and Field of Glory Renaissance (FOGR) with element basing, lists and points. Most bases are the same as for DBR. Notable exceptions being that limbers are not required for Renatio et Gloriam and its generals should be based individually not as part of ordinary army units. DBR suffers from the lists not completely matching the rules mentality as some unit types (such as Shot) had changed quite a bit in how they work without the lists and points being updated to reflect this. FOGR is slightly more up to date but can be slow. I recall a Britcon where I had to wait some time for a lift home from a FOGR player, my Bolt Action tourney having finished. Dice were rolled, stands moved back and forth (but not by much). Nothing seemed to be happening but suddenly one side ‘broke’ and it was all over. This might reflect a prolonged firefight with some dancing in and out of range but was less than exciting to watch. All generic Renaissance rule sets suffer or benefit from a wide time and technology spread. There is some acceptable degree of variance in 2 Pike and Shot armies having it away. Throw in Indian elephants, samurai warriors, North American Indians, it all gets tricky. On the plus side the games can be used for a wide range of armies. In FOGR and DBR-land the later, better equipped armies came to be the winner’s choice as obviously better kit is better no matter how many unarmed rabble you can drag up.
For some idea about army make up ‘The Little Corporal’ sell competition size army packs for the latter part of the period. Their 10,000 point lists seem to be current 1,000 point armies. 1689 Jacobites need 246 infantry, 12 cavalry plus commanders. Their Government opposition; 192 infantry, 36 cavalry, 10 dragoons, 1 gun plus commanders. Some rough maths and mapping of these models to DBR gives 464 DBR points including 3 commanders for the Government dudes. DBR is often played at 400 or 450 points so we could guess at needing a few more models or sticking to the ‘high cost’ armies. Models are in DBR/FOG bases usually of 4 infantry or 3 cavalry. These are then grouped in formations. Most infantry are of 6 bases (24 models) and cavalry 4 (12 models). Elephants and Guns are 3 bases, the big pike blocks and Tercios 12. The bases within each formation flow around each other so there is no easy get out in using a single smaller base in place of several larger ones.
The special game dice are 6 sided but with specific icon faces. Ordinary D6 and a look up chart can be used instead; a player could get by with one of each of the 5 dice colours and re-rolling in the few cases where more than one needs to rolled at once. The dice ‘feature’ is that a unit in a better situation rolls a better die. The cards are used for unit command and to a lesser extent for deployment and scouting (the latter could be skipped). There are 8 Black, 10 White, 12 Green, 10 yellow and 6 Red cards, plus a few more (4) for optional ambushes or flank marches. This is less than a 52 card pack but there are 5 suits in use making even using multiple basic card packs tricky. The easiest get around is to use 2 packs, treat the 8 Aces as Black and divide the suits into game colours to taste. The alternative is to use tokens drawn from a bag. These will need to be coloured on one side and neutral on the other or the drawn colours will be immediately obvious to both sides. The activation trick is that some colours are better than others but the better cards trump the lower. So if you need a rubbish Green the better Yellow and Red will still do the trick. Black and White are broadly useless although the White can be upgraded to Green by Generals in some situations.
There is not much help about on the web in terms of playthroughs or hints on play beyond the basics of design philosophy. Even Mortem et Gloriam has very few playthrough videos in the wild despite having being out for several years. To try and work it all out here is a solo game between 8,200ish points of Royalist and Parliament forces. A full 1,000 point game would require another 4 or 5 units or better quality units on each side. The English Civil War is a relatively easy situation to game as the range of troop types is limited and both sides are somewhat similar. More diverse match-ups such as in Eastern Europe or off-the-wall encounters like Samurai against Indians are going to push the rules considerably more. Terrain is legally placed here but has been kept to a minimum; moving stuff about and interpreting dice rolls will be enough work.
This should not be seen as an accurate example of play but an outline of what is going on. Later moves are going to have fewer errors than earlier ones. This blog will has been updated with knowledge gained from another solo, plus a face to face game and some rules forum clarifications. Both sides have 4 commanders (the game maximum) although they could possibly get away with 3 each (infantry centre and 2 wings). Parliament has better command and draws 4 (commander), 3, 3 and 3 activation cards. The Royalists 3 (commander) 2, 2 and 2 (on reflection this may be a poor choice). These will be shown as coloured meeples placed by each general but cards would usually be hidden during games. One card is usually needed to move a unit but 2 cards can move a line of units (with the second card needing to any other than black or white). Some units get a free move (in this case the Royalist Horse a free charge) and others (none in this game) will move unless a card is played to hold them. Shooting and melee does not need a card play but melee can be influenced by card play.
Here is the game after turn 1. The Royalist baggage is safely in a village and the Parliament guns on a hill so they can shoot over their mates. No units are in charge range and most units can only move once so there is still some way to go. On a good card a unit can move twice but nothing that good came up. The orders shown are those in play for turn 2. The only fighting so far is both batteries blasting away. The Royalist galloper guns doing some hits on the Parliament Horse ahead of them and driving them back.
Turn 2 and still no one is in charge range. The Royalists keep moving up. One infantry unit takes hits and is driven back but the checkerboard line is still in place.
Turn 3 and finally some action. A unit of Royalist horse charges on the left. There is a charge combat and later regular combat. All pretty even. The Parliament horse pulls back. The Royalists are forced to pursue routs but stay away from orderly retreats. With better commands the Royalists would have the option to expand in melee which might have helped. Parliament has more orders than it can reasonably use at this time. The galloper guns put out enough hits to break the Parliament horse opposite them. The horse break, run off and are removed from the table. In retrospect Parliament could have used a yellow or better command in a previous turn to remove one of these hits before they built up.
At this point we see some meaningful combats. Two Parliament cavalry (top of image) declare charges at a single Royalist horse. None of these charges are eligible as flank charges as these must start with the whole of the charger’s base behind the front face of the target. Flank charges are relatively hard to set up in Renatio et Gloriam if a rough line of defense can be kept up. The Dragoons were still too far off to shoot at the Horse coming in.
On the other flank 2 units of Horse declare a charge on the Royalist mixed Horse and Shot. A neighbouring Royalist unit could counter-charge in but it seems better to stand back. The Horse take fire from both Royalist units on the way in but not enough to stop them getting into combat.
That 6-base unit is hard to shift. It fights as well as the full Horse units. The overlapping file adds a dice but 1 value lower than the paired off combat rolls (but only in the melee combat not the initial charge phase). Both sides are still at it at the end of melee.
The end of the turn sees the lines starting to break up. The Parliament centre and right still looks good. Their left is a mess.
Both centres move up and we get some musket shooting. The Parliament left is all gone bar the General (who I forgot to roll a death test for).
Parliament Horse moves to threaten the left flank of the Royalist infantry line. The Royalist right moves up unopposed. The centre is not clear, both sides are roughly equal, stands are being lost.
The Parliament flank attack on the Royalist left does not work out. The Horse can declare a charge on the foot but another unit, the second line blue foot can intercept them. The Horse are broken and off table. Off to one side Horse units from both factions fight each other.
All but one Parliament horse unit is wiped out. The remaining one pulls back in good order. The centre has seen a lot of tit for tat casualties but with the foot units starting close to half strength they are beginning to rout.
Parliament have now lost 2 infantry and 5 cavalry units so the army breaks
The mixed Shot and Horse units seemed particularly useful here. They are more expensive in points than pure Horse but are bigger (so fight better and last longer) than Horse and shoot as well. They do lose some of the Horse special rules but move nearly as quickly. The Galloper guns were a natural compliment to them. They do not have the range of heavier batteries but could move (other guns can only wheel) and their range is still good enough for most purposes. Bad terrain would probably stuff up both unit types.
Although both sides’ deployment seems reasonable there is an artificial restraint. Close foot such as the Pike and Shot units cannot deploy within 40cm of board sides defined as open (both edges in this case). Also should they move into these sectors they will take random hits unless they end up partially in cover. This does feel like the system restricting what can be done rather than allowing actions but with potential unfortunate consequences.
Looking back at the game mechanisms losses really started to mount up. A default shooting die is Green. Each shooting stand rolls 1 dice so a Pike and Shot or artillery unit will roll 3. Each Green die has a 1/3 chance of scoring 1 hit and a 1/6 of scoring 2 hits. It is quite reasonable that a unit shooting once will destroy a base (needing 3 hits) on a target. Even the 1-step reduction in shooting on a White die will cause a hit on 1/3 of rolls. Shooting will also cause drive backs which can be negated by red or yellow command cards from a nearby General. A mistake was made in this game in that shooting should be simultaneous but was instead run alternately by unit. This resulted in some targets being driven back out of range by shooting and then ending up unable to reply. Face to face charge and melee was also often at Green or White with relatively even losses. I did miss that the chequerboard Pike and Shot units had ‘rear support’ so having a second line would have allowed at least 1 additional wound to be recovered each turn. O
The command card system is key to getting anywhere with the game. A card can generally only do one thing; charge or move (including within combat), negate drive backs or remove losses. One exception is a Red double move that keeps a distance from hostile units. Cards drawn depend on general quality and this is in turn is restricted by the rules and army lists. Moving a whole command will be tricky unless it is small and the general both reasonably talented and lucky. This is not a major issue if out of shooting and charge range but in other cases there is a strong case for keeping some good cards back for reacting or recovery. Card manipulation could be seen as a key factor in success. This sort of system also swings on terrain choice and list makeup. Battlefield tactics are only one other contributing factor in doing well.
Here’s hoping that not too many other rules were missed. Renatio et Gloriam is not off to eBay just yet. At least the rules got played unlike Art de la Guerre and FOGR that were read but not played or FOG-Napoleonic that never got read because of an unfortunate and almost impossible to decipher font face (they did sell on eBay).
Gaming in Blackshaw Head 